


Beautiful Soul of Confusion

by Zoonr



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s04e05 The Field Where I Died, Episode: s05e03 Ascension, F/M, MSR, Paperclip - Freeform, UST/RST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-10-11
Updated: 2002-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-26 22:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2669186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoonr/pseuds/Zoonr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder realizes his theory about Melissa Ephesian and his past lives were all wrong -- his soul mate is another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beautiful Soul of Confusion

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally posted at my website zoonr.tripod.com in October 2002.
> 
> This is my attempt at correcting what I think were the huge mistakes of "The Field Where I Died." This is the one episode that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, that I needed badly to remedy. Also, thanks to Heidi for cheering me on!

They were the last agents to leave the field. 

Scully watched Mulder from the driveway of the compound as the rest of the bureau's task force members and the emergency crews made their way out of the building where the final evidence of the horrific mass suicide was being removed.  He stood among the tall grass alone, looking lost and staring at something she couldn’t quite make out from that distance.  Scully couldn’t recall ever seeing him quite so forlorn.  She wanted to comfort him.  Instead, she pushed away a confusing feeling of jealousy. 

In his hands, Mulder held the photographs Scully had filched from the county archives.  The images of Sullivan Biddle and Sarah Kavanaugh, according to Mulder, were the images of himself in a past life, and that of his past love, who in this life was known as Melissa Ephesian.  At least, she _had_ been known as Melissa Ephesian.  At that moment, her body was en-route to the county morgue, along with the hundred or so other cult members of The Temple of the Seven Stars who had willingly taken their own life in what the press was sure to call _Jonestown part II_. 

When she found him inside the compound just after it had all ended, tears had already formed pools in the corners of Mulder’s eyes; not yet making their way down his cheek, as he fought against the flood of emotion over the death of a woman he had only just met.  Scully understood it partly.  Any person would be within their rights to be overwhelmed by seeing so many people lying recently dead.  Especially when, as a law enforcement officer, you may have been able to prevent it.  But, Scully knew it was more than that for Mulder.  Even though she still didn’t quite understand his willingness to believe so completely in his past life regression, a part of her was afraid to believe.  And the reason for her fear, like her jealousy, was a complete mystery to her.  Well, maybe not a complete mystery, but one she was not at all ready to explore, or to solve.

~*~*~*~*

“You’re being awfully quiet.”  She gave Mulder a sideways glance as she spoke from the passenger seat in the car.  She pretended it was an offhanded question, a lighthearted attempt to stir conversation about the case, and end the mundane boredom of the drive back to D.C.  Then she renewed her fake interest in the file on her lap. 

“Just thinking.”  He chewed on a sunflower seed shell absently.  His eyes kept their halfhearted attention on the road in front of him as he drove, never moving to look in her direction.  His tone was that of someone who felt he had sufficiently concluded the conversation, and had no intention of starting another one. 

She paused for a moment, her intent to hide her discomfort succeeding.  “Did you want to head back to the office, or just call it a day?”

“I think I’ll head back to work.  You can go home if you want to, Scully.”  There was nothing accusing in his voice.  More like fatigue.  He just wanted to forget about this case, and the best place to do that was at work where he could rummage through his inbox and pick out something banal.  Something with aliens or mutants.   Something easy.

“Mulder, the report can wait until tomorrow.  Why don’t you just get some sleep?  You look exhausted.”

He answered her with silence.  She understood that he would not be going home anytime soon and he would definitely not be going to bed early tonight.  Mulder was an insomniac on good days, and a sleep-deprivation study subject on bad days.  She sighed as she closed her notebook and leaned her head back in the seat.  She wouldn’t sleep.  Instead she just stared at the countryside, some of it unchanged since the days of the great battles fought there more than a hundred years ago. 

And she thought about Sullivan Biddle and the woman he left behind when he died in that field.

~*~*~*~*~

“Do you want to look this over first or just sign it?”  Scully stood in front of Mulder, who was seated at his desk, and held out the report she had spent the day writing for the Ephesian case.  She was irritated, and her hand jutted out in front of her in the way a swordsman holds his sword before a fight.  Pointed straight at him and ready to thrust if necessary. 

He looked up, eyes still glassy, as if he was just now aware that she was in the room.  He’d been that way all day.  Mopey, standoffish and unproductive.  It was starting to really piss her off.  It’s not as if she hadn’t written their reports numerous times before.   For most cases they usually had to write at least two.  The preliminary report was usually due on Skinner’s desk within a day of closing a case.  Mulder and Scully had worked up pretty good system for getting that one ready, either taking turns, or in many cases the one who wasn’t in the hospital would get the job.  The more extensive report was a collaboration.  They’d both write up their field notes, add to them and then they’d sit down and put it all together. 

The report she held out to Mulder was the preliminary report.  The fact that it wasn’t her turn to write it wasn’t what bothered her.  The truth was, she had no idea why she was angry with him.  Most likely it was just his depressed disposition.  How long was he going to mourn her?  Melissa Ephesian?  That’s what he was doing.  Mourning the loss of a stranger who had convinced him she was his soul mate.

“I’m sure it’s good, Scully.”  He took the report cautiously from her hand, as he pulled a pen from his desk.  He signed the paper and handed it back to her.  She reached out for it, turned on her heels and headed back to her area of the office.

“Something wrong, Scully?”  With her back turned to him, she let out a resigned sigh.  Yes, there was something wrong, but she wished someone could tell her what it was.

“No, Mulder.”

“Come on, Scully.  What is it?”  He seemed to be coming out of his funk a little.  He had something to think about now, besides the topic that had occupied his mind all day.  But now Scully was trading emotional places with him.

“Mulder, nothing's wrong.  I’m just a little tired.”

"Do you want to grab something to eat?"

"No thanks. I'm just going to drop this off with Skinner and I'm going home."  Scully gathered her things, grabbed her coat and headed towards the door.  "See you Monday."

"Scully?"  Before he could finish his sentence and before she could stop herself, she spun around and blurted out a question she hadn't been consciously considering until that moment.

"What if you got it wrong, Mulder?"

"What?"

"What if she was just another person bound to you, just like your sister, just like the smoking man... just like me.  Why do you assume she's your soul's mate?  Maybe that life was a mistake."

He was shell-shocked.  He gaped at her with his mouth open and his tongue wagging like a dog, unable to form a thought, let alone a sentence.  For that matter, she couldn't believe she'd said it any more than he did.  Finally, he sucked his tongue back, and spit out a word.  "Scully..."

"Forget it, Mulder.  I'll see you Monday."  Before he could call her back, she was gone.  He heard her footsteps echoing down the hall and up the stairs, as he just sat there. 

~*~*~*~*

She never thought it was wise to drink alone.  Not necessarily because she was worried about developing a problem.  It was more that she thought it was somewhat pathetic and sad.  Yet, paradoxically, she enjoyed a solitary glass of wine from time to time.  It wasn't the same as going to a bar, or making herself a screwdriver.  Wine was classy.  It made her feel elegant; like a lady.  Sometimes when you're a woman in a man's job, you do what you can to feel feminine.  Of course, that was bullshit.  But the lie was working, at least tonight.  Besides, it was Friday.  Why couldn't she have a glass of Merlot with her dinner?  Her leftover, microwave warmed up, single person’s out-of-a-box dinner.

She still felt agitated about her conversation with Mulder.  Even after a few hours, she hadn't figured out what she had been trying to tell him.  That was bull too.  She knew, if only slightly.  Finally, she had been able to admit to herself that she was jealous.  Jealous that Mulder thought he was connected, in this life and all previous and future lives, to Melissa Ephesian.  A woman he knew for about ten seconds in the here and now.  Not that she believed in a soul mate anyway.   It was a silly, romantic notion that had been made up by poets and starry-eyed young boys.  Though, she admitted, it was a beautiful idea. That two people could be bound eternally, through time and love -- attracted to each other like magnets, always feeling the pull of the other regardless of their corporeal bodies. 

Even Dana Scully was allowed a quixotic thought now and then.

A half of a glass of wine later, and she wasn't feeling quite so agitated.  More like relaxed, and heading towards melancholy.  She pushed herself off the floor in front of her sofa, picked up her dinner plate and glass, and carried them into the kitchen.  A change in mood after 5 ounces of Merlot and it was time to just say 'no'.  She set the dishes in the sink and glanced at the clock on the wall.  Eight-thirty on a Friday night and she was ready to call it a night. 

Whoo hoo.

As she headed towards her bedroom, she heard a soft rapping on her front door.  The knock was unsure.  Probably the originator was using the pad of one finger, satisfied to give it the effort but not really hoping she would hear it.  She almost didn't.  As the sound began to fade away, it registered in her mind that there was tapping coming from the door, and knew it could only be one person on the other side. 

She bypassed the peep hole, unlocked the door, and opened it slowly.  He looked as unsure as his knock had sounded.

"Hey, Scully."

"Mulder, is something wrong?"

"No, I just...  Can I come in?"  He shuffled his feet, looking in that moment like a nervous teenager about to ask his girlfriend to the prom.

"Sure, Mulder."  She moved aside to let him in.  It was strange to have him here.  She realized then that they really didn't socialize much outside of work.  If they did, it was usually after wrapping up a case, and would typically take place at the office, on the road, or at Mulder's place.  The only things that happened at her apartment seemed to be big life changing, terrible events.  Like the murder of her sister, and her own abduction.  Perhaps she would consider moving.  Now was a good time.

"Are you afraid your mother might catch you?" 

"Huh?"  She looked up at him, pulled from her self-reminiscence. 

"The door.  Are you going to close the door, or are you afraid of being caught in your room with a boy?"   He waggled his eyebrows, and she realized that she was still standing near the door, holding it wide open, as if ushering in a whole group of imaginary people.  She gave him a shy smile and closed the door behind her.

They stood there for a moment, just staring at each other.  Neither knowing what to say, or even why they felt so awkward.  What do normal people with normal social lives do in a situation like this?

"Can I get you anything?  Something to drink?" 

"No, that's okay.  I stopped by because I wanted to give you something."  Scully noticed then that one of Mulder's hands was behind his back, concealing the gift he had brought her.

"What is it?"   She furrowed her brow, as if this was the strangest thing anyone had ever said to her.

He brought his hand around from behind him, and held out a small, plastic square.  She recognized it instantly as a CD jewel case.  He held it out to her and she took it graciously.

"Nirvana, Mulder?  I'm afraid my moshing phase ended about a year ago.  You just missed it.  I've already moved on to break dancing."  She spoke dryly, her lips curling in what could be considered a snarl by an outsider.  Only her eyes betrayed her secret humor.

He laughed softly, a muffled sound that got caught in the back of his throat.  It was boyish, and very charming when combined with his closed mouth smile.  She'd never noticed that particular smile before.  Strange.  It wasn't often she discovered a new Mulder facial expression.  She thought she knew them all.  Memorized them.  But even after four years together, seems she still had a lot to learn about her partner.  Rather than make her sad, it quickened her heartbeat a bit, and she found herself smiling with him.  For a moment.

Then she _realized_ she was smiling with him.  That's not how she worked.  Not how they worked.  She pretended to be immune to his charm, and he pretended to believe she was immune to it.  That was their M.O.

Scully cleared her throat, then flipped the CD over and read the names of the songs listed on the back.  "'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' 'Lithium."

"That's for the geeky, scientist moshers."

"'Territorial Pissings?'  Mulder, am I missing something here?"

"You forgot about 'Breed," he deadpanned.

"Seriously, Mulder."

"Nirvana, Scully.  The path to enlightenment?"  He held his hands out to his side in a "how much more obvious can I get" posture.  "Karma and Rebirth."

"You're talking about Buddhism.  I get it, Mulder."

"No, you don't."

"I don't?" 

"No."  He grabbed her arm, and pulled her over to the sofa, practically lifting her off the floor as he did it.  They both sat semi-facing each other, each with one leg bent on the sofa, and the other one planted on the ground.   Scully held the CD in her left hand, and Mulder still held her right arm about the wrist.  "Scully, after work today, I started thinking about what you said."

"Mulder, I was just cranky."  She looked down toward the neutral ground of the gift she held.  Anywhere, but into his eyes.  This was heading back into awkward territory.  The comfort she had regained with him when he gave her the CD was fading fast.

"Yeah, you were.  But, you still meant it.  And it got me thinking."  His thumb started to trace the skin around her wrist softly.  She pulled away from him, feigning the need to get more comfortable on the sofa.  If he noticed, he didn't indicate he had.  He continued, "I was thinking about my regression."

"Mulder, you know I don't believe in past lives."

"Why not?"  As if he didn't know.  They'd had this conversation probably three times in the past few days.  Clearly, this was some sort of diversion technique.

"You know why not.  Even forgetting for a moment that as a scientist there's no proof that what you said during your regression was a past life memory and not some subconscious memory of facts you'd learned during the research into the case, as a catholic, I couldn't believe it."

"Couldn't or wouldn't?

"Does it matter?  Look Mulder, I'm not pretending to be the poster child for the Vatican, and I'm not saying I know all the answers or believe everything that Catholicism has taught me, but even if it were possible, I don't think I'd want it to be."  There.  That was better.  This was familiar territory.  They were having a typical Mulder-Scully debate.  Intensely interesting, and on the surface it seemed deeply personal, but ultimately it was esoterically philosophical and when you got down to it - it was nothing more than fluff. 

Or maybe more like Kevlar.

"You wouldn't want to live more than one life?"  He sat back.  His eyes twinkled in curious disbelief, but his mood was jovial, and his mouth curved up slightly at the corners.  He widened his arms, and rested them on the back and the arm of the sofa.

"No.  The cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth is one I find somewhat sad.  That a soul continues in this endless circle, never getting it right and always coming back to do it all over again and again and again," she said, twirling her index finger in a jerky, looping circle.

"But the point is to keep improving until you reach Nirvana.  In other words..."

"...perfection."  She said it in unison with him, though in her voice there was a quality of tiredness, sadness, perhaps wistfulness.  "I know.  But, I don't think perfection is a possible state of being.  Instead, we'd just end up going around in circles.  And since people rarely consciously remember their 'past lives,'" she said, complete with air quotes, "it's most likely that we'd just continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.  Or dream up brand new ones.  I just don't see the benefit of living more than one life, when it's hard enough to get one right.  There's enough confusion in one lifetime to sort through."

"But that's the benefit."  Now Scully sat back, and looked at Mulder with a companionable, yet skeptical gaze.  She knew there was no end to this conversation, and they'd probably have it many times in the future.  But it was still wonderful.  They rarely agreed.  Rather, they rarely had the same approach to things, but that was most of the fun.  They sat for a quiet moment, absently staring past the other.  Scully waited for him to continue.

"Scully, what if that is the benefit?"  His voice sounded more intimate now.  A complete shift from the boy-like curiosity it had a moment before.

"What?"

His posture changed, and he sat forward a little, leaned into her space.  The light tone of his voice there only a moment ago had sobered a little.  He started slowly.  "What if, in order to reach perfection, we have to sort through all the confusing messages we get from the people who are always around us, and find the destiny meant for us."

"The people always around us?  You mean like soul mates?"

"Yeah.  What if it's true?  That we are bonded with the same souls throughout time, always taking on a different existence until finally we reach the one true form?  What if perfection isn't a state of nothingness, but rather a final state of physical being?"

"You mean, like finding your perfect soul mate?"  Scully pushed herself as far into the cushions of the sofa as they would allow her.  Wanting them to envelop her, smother her, or at least muffle the sound of the next word she was sure he was going to utter.

"Yes."  Yep, that was the word.  And, now for the clincher.  She might as well hasten it up, and then maybe he would leave.  She still had half of a glass of wine somewhere.

She took a moderately deep breath.  "And you think that Melissa Ephesian was your soul mate?  And you're worried that now you'll be condemned to live at least one more life before you can reach your state of perfection?"  He didn't say anything for, what seemed to her, to be minutes.  She had turned her head away, staring unseeing towards the shadows playing near the window.  Then she felt his hand take hold of her fingers, and the sofa dipped as he moved a few inches closer to her.  He was still at a respectable distance, but when she looked up, she saw the intensity in his eyes.  It was a look he usually reserved when speaking of his sister, and his search to find her.  All of his attention focused on one thing only, like the sun through a magnifying glass, burning a hole through an ant. 

Right now, she was the ant.

"No."

"No?"

"No.  I don't believe Melissa Ephesian was my soul mate."

"Oh."

"I mean, I did.  For a while."

"Why the change?"  She found now that she couldn't look away from him.  His gaze held hers fixed and unwavering.  She pressed the question even though she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"It was you."

"Me?"  She breathed a nervous laugh through her nostrils and lowered her eyes for a moment.  "What do you mean?"

"At work today.  You suggested that if I was Sullivan Biddle in a past life, maybe the reason it ended so tragically was because it was a mistake.  That Sarah Kavanaugh and I - him - weren't meant to be."

"Mulder, I told you, I don't even believe in this stuff."  Her voice was barely audible, only a decibel or so above nothing.  He heard her anyway.  He always heard her.

"But I do."  He moved his other hand from the back of the sofa, and carefully reached up to brush it against her chin.  With one finger, he slowly lifted her gaze back to him.  "You were right."

Mulder moved closer to her again, so that their hips were practically fused together.  His hand - the one moving feather light over her fingers - added more pressure, until finally her hand was trapped within his.  He hadn't intended this when he came here.  He just wanted to give her a silly gift and apologize for being such an ass today.  But now that he was here with her on this sofa, he was even more certain than ever that his theory was right. 

His past lives had been practice runs.  Like a minor league baseball player who just needs to make a few adjustments before he can make it into the "Bigs."  Each adjustment he makes gets him closer and closer until finally it just clicks, and he starts belting them out of the park. 

He and Scully had always been connected.  She was his sergeant, his father, his friend.  But it was never right.   Close, but not perfect.  They kept missing the pitch.

Until this life.

"I was right?  Can I get you to write that down for me?"  There was no punch to her joke as her voice trembled and came out as a whisper.   It was a futile attempt at calming the nerves and at silencing the sound of her heartbeat, which threatened to deafen her.  She wasn't sure why she was so nervous.  They were just talking.  Well, they were talking in very close proximity.  But if she had had a knife she could have sliced through her desire for him to be just a little closer, it was so tangible. 

It wasn't a new feeling - wanting Mulder.  Though it usually came in controllable spurts, and rarely lasted long enough for her to analyze it, or act upon it.  It was there, but only in background to their work, to their partnership, which was everything.  But if she was interpreting his subtext correctly, he was telling her he thought _they_ were soul mates.  This time he meant it not just as companions through time, which could mean a consortium of many, each having an important, but interchangeable role.  What he was saying was much more intimate.  The mythical definition of the term.  Two incomplete souls searching the other to become a synergized one. 

"Scully?"

She swallowed the lump in her throat and found her voice, sorta.  "Uh huh?"

He moved in even closer to her.  She felt his breath on her face as he spoke on  a deep, throaty exhale.  "What do you think of my theory?"

She thought he had asked her a question, but she couldn't be sure.  The sound of her heart thudding behind her eyeballs made it difficult to hear anything else.  Much less see anything.  Her lids closed slightly and her vision became dreamlike.  Sleepy.  But she still had her other senses; touch, smell and taste.  The scent of his soap, mixed with the fading remnants of his cologne filled her nose, as she felt his hand caress her cheek.  She found her own fingers woven around his neck, flirting with the hairs there, just moments before she tasted his lips for the first time.

He tasted minty, almost antiseptic.  The bastard had gargled before he came over.  Aren't we a little too sure of ourselves, Mulder?  She entertained the thought of breaking off the kiss to call him on it, but then he deepened it, parting his lips, tugging on hers with soft, exquisite suction, and then all of her thoughts left her, and there was only sensation. 

After enough time had passed for the Buddha himself to be reborn, die and be born again, they parted.  Their faces were still mere millimeters from each other, unable to back away any further.  "It's not bad," Scully said, her voice much more sure of itself than it had been earlier.

"Not bad."

"Your theory, Mulder.  Though, scientifically speaking, more evidence is still needed before a reasonable conclusion can be determined."  Her eyes twinkled and he caught the playfulness in her words.  Her invitation for innuendo and banter had never been quite so fun.  Or had been quite so unambiguous. 

"I might be willing to conduct further research, if you think there's a chance you'll be persuaded."

This time, she leaned in, tilted her head slightly to the side, and brushed her lips over his.  It was sensual, but short lived, and he found himself nearly whimpering as she pulled away.  She looked deeply into his eyes, and her smile faded as she grew serious once again.  Only now, there was no awkwardness or discomfort, but rather her desire to make him understand the complete meaning behind her words.  "Put the CD in the player, Mulder.  I think I'm in the mood for perfection."


End file.
